Jose Mourinho, the laundry basket and the 'hidden earpiece'
The Chelsea manager has been banished before and it turned into a conspiracy theorist's dream
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Your support makes all the difference.Jose Mourinho's stadium ban takes effect this weekend, meaning the Chelsea manager will not be present for his side's Premier League meeting with Stoke.
The rules of his punishment mean he will not be allowed to enter the match day venue, Stoke's Britannia Stadium, before, during or after the game and cannot communicate with staff at any point.
However, the conspiracy theorists among us may doubt whether the Special One will really be the Absent One on Saturday afternoon.
Mourinho was given a similar punishment during his first stint at Chelsea. Uefa handed the him a two-game touchline ban in 2005, which covered both legs of a Champions League quarter-final with Bayern Munich from which Chelsea emerged victorious.
During the tie at Stamford Bridge, where Mourinho was nowhere to be seen, it was noted that Chelsea's fitness coach Rui Faria was wearing an ill-fitting woolly hat and was regularly scratching his ear. It led to suspicions that Mourinho, who was strictly forbidden from communicating with his staff, was feeding Faria information through an earpiece.
Meanwhile, goalkeeping coach Silvinho Louro was spotted making regular trips to the dressing room carrying pieces of paper. His returns to the dug-out happened to coincide with substitutions during the 4-2 win.
However, those allegations were trumped by rumours of Mourinho hiding in a laundry basket. An unverified story suggested the Portuguese boss hid in the basket used for transporting the club's kit around Stamford Bridge. It was claimed that he used it to hide from Uefa officials but was able to hop out long enough to deliver pre-match and half-time team-talks. The tale went that 10 minutes before full-time, Mourinho got back in the skip and was wheeled out of Stamford Bridge to a nearby leisure centre where it was claimed he had spent the entire evening.
Chelsea play Stoke this Saturday at 5.30pm.
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